‘What the devil d’you mean? Speak plainly.’
Richard smiled superciliously. ‘Yes, you’re a plain man of plain speech, John. I mean that when persons with power want something done, it is as well at least to make a gesture in that direction.’
‘What’s that to do with Fitzhai being in chains?’
‘He’s not in chains – yet. Just enjoying our hospitality beneath this building.’ The sheriff stroked his narrow beard. ‘The truth of the matter is, which I did not know until yesterday, that the stricken Arnulph de Bonneville is an old and close friend of our bishop. Although Henry Marshall is usually away from the city, he happens to be here this week to conduct ordinations. He has heard of the murder and is pressing strongly for the malefactor who killed Arnulf’s son to be found and hanged speedily.’
Light dawned on the coroner. ‘Ah, I see. You need a scapegoat and Fitzhai is the nearest at hand.’
De Revelle shrugged delicately. ‘He’s the best we have.’
John threw up his hands in exasperation. ‘There is not a shred of evidence against him.’
The sheriff smiled gently, as if humouring a child. ‘That need be no obstacle to satisfying powerful men. I need not remind you that our Bishop Henry is brother to William, Marshal of all England … and there are ways of obtaining evidence that I feel inclined to employ.’
John saw that it was useless to argue with Richard, so he delivered his other news, telling the sheriff about the other murder they had now to investigate. Though it was the sheriff’s own men who had passed on the news of a body on Heckwood Tor, they had not known that the man’s throat had been cut and the matter had been too trivial to report to him. Now he seemed mildly interested, and asked when the man was likely to have been killed.
‘Four to six weeks ago, I should say. Impossible to be accurate,’ John replied.
‘About the time that Alan Fitzhai came back to England and travelled to Plymouth, maybe across that Dartmoor track. Perhaps we can get him to confess to both murders.’
John was uneasy: the same thought had occurred to him, but in the absence of any pointer to Fitzhai’s guilt he was not ready to offer up the man as a sacrifice to county politics.
But the sheriff was not yet finished. ‘I’m glad you came in, John, it saves me the trouble of sending for you.’
‘About what?’ John said gruffly, smarting at the sheriff’s still patronising manner.
‘I said that the Bishop was concerned about the murder of his friend’s son. Well, he has summoned us both to attend on him to discuss it, at the end of the chapter meeting today. We will be at the cathedral three hours after noon.’
John’s scowl deepened. ‘Are you going to dance so readily to the tune of these damned clerics?’ he demanded.
The antipathy of town against Church was never far under the surface. The burgesses of Exeter resented the autonomy of the cathedral Close within the city. Even the sheriff and coroner had no jurisdiction other than to police the roads that traversed it.
But in this case Richard de Revelle seemed willing to toe the line, for the sake of his own political agenda. The Bishop and the Precentor had supported Prince John against King Richard and the coroner knew that de Revelle’s sympathies had also lain strongly in that direction. John de Wolfe considered them traitors and could not understand why Richard had distributed pardons so readily, even rewarding his brother with favours, instead of throwing him into gaol.
‘I trust that you will be there, John,’ the sheriff continued. ‘The Bishop confers regularly with our Archbishop from Canterbury.’ This was a crude reminder that Hubert Walter had appointed John to the coronership.
‘I’ll be there, never fear,’ he ground out. ‘If only to see that you don’t show too excessive zeal in prosecuting the law.’
Henry Marshall, Bishop of Exeter, lived in the shadow of his more famous brother, William, yet he had many worthy attributes of his own and was undoubtedly a more godly priest than many who wore the mitre. He was not primarily a fighting prelate, as was Hubert Walter, who had distinguished himself with a sword at the Crusades. Henry Marshall was an ascetic, who hankered after the true style of priesthood that had existed in Celtic times. Though he lived a life of comparative luxury, it was modest by the standards of most bishops. An example of his deep feelings for the Church was his introduction of the compulsory gift that had to be made every Whitsun by all the households in Devon and Cornwall of a halfpenny to the cathedral – a charitable act that was as popular as snow in August.
This was the man that Crowner John and his brother-in-law came to visit that afternoon. When they arrived the chapter meeting had just finished and the prebendaries were dispersing. When they, their vicars and acolytes had scurried away, the tall figure of the Bishop emerged, followed by Archdeacon John de Alecon. Behind him was Thomas de Boterellis, the Precentor. They processed from the chapter house to the adjacent cloisters, and the Archdeacon beckoned the coroner and the sheriff to join them in the calm, colonnaded quadrangle.
The usual greetings were made and both visitors knelt to kiss the Bishop’s ring. Richard de Revelle did this with flourish and drama, the coroner with grudging resignation.
Bishop Henry, dressed in his informal robes of a dark cloak over a white cassock, a skull cap on his head, stopped between two arches to look out over the grassy plot. Unlike the close outside, this area was kept clean and tidy.
‘This is a bad business, Richard,’ he said, in his thin, high voice, ignoring the coroner for the moment. ‘Arnulph de Bonneville was an old friend. Our families came from the same town in Normandy and we both have interests still in estates there.’
De Revelle exuded sympathetic concern. ‘Indeed, your grace, it is sad for all concerned. The lord Arnulf is near death, so I understand, and to have his eldest son murdered in this foul way is a cruel blow to a dying father.’
Hypocrite, thought John. You’ve no concern about the family. All you want is credit for hanging a suspect – any suspect.
John de Alecon turned to the coroner, determined to bring him into the conversation and to the notice of the Bishop. ‘I understand that you saw Arnulf de Bonneville when you visited Peter Tavy. How did he seem to you?’
‘He was half dead – and it would be a mercy if the other half came quickly. Mindless, paralysed and lying in his own mess – that’s no way to delay in leaving this world.’
‘God’s will be done,’ said the Bishop piously. ‘None of us can choose the manner of his passing.’ John stayed silent, thinking it indiscrete to mention his idea of a merciful pillow over the face.
Henry Marshall changed tack abruptly, again speaking directly to the Sheriff. ‘What’s to be done, Richard? It’s intolerable that Norman gentlemen can be massacred in their own county. We need to teach the people a short, sharp lesson.’
De Revelle tapped the side of his nose. ‘I have a suspect already in the gaol, your grace. I think we need look no further for the culprit than that.’ He omitted to add that his culprit was also a Norman.
‘Has he confessed?’ snapped the prelate.
‘Not yet – but I intend to put him to the Ordeal to settle the matter rapidly.’
At this the coroner bristled. It was the first he had heard of it. ‘Wait a moment, Sheriff. The death of Hubert de Bonneville has been enrolled by a coroner, officially to be presented before the Justices in Eyre when they come next to Exeter. You may not take such a serious case outside the King’s courts.’
The Bishop turned his cadaverous face with its large watery eyes on John, as if seeing him for the first time.
The Sheriff put on his familiar martyred expression. ‘My dear Crowner, you may have this odd interest in dead bodies, treasure-trove, wrecks, royal fish and the like, but you have no jurisdiction over suspects.’